Lighted Candles

[Becky (ridendurance)]

It was early summer the first night I saw him. He rode in complete silence and held the saddle horn firmly with both hands. That may have been the night when he first began to grip his hands tigthtly around a whole new world.
What struck me that night was that, even in his total silence, his smile shone like a lighted candle in a dark room. He had a kind of inner shining light.., sort of an incandesence. He came.., he rode horses.., he changed. His smile still lit us up like a circle of birthday candles on a cake. He began to quietly mimic the kind of clicking sound we use to ask the horses to move forward. After that he started to tentatively rock his body to encourage his horse to keep moving if it had stopped.

As we began to see him try new things, we as leaders started to experiment too. We stopped his horse and asked him to give us a "high five". At first his side walkers lifted his hand to mine and showed him what that was we wanted. I don't remember how many therapy nights later it was when he lifted both his own hands and offered me a "high ten" and gifted us all with his extraordinary smile.

That was the night my own heart connected all of my own missing pieces. I began a new journey of my own. I applied for an instructorship for therapeutic riding and equine assisted learning. I found a lighted candle of my own that night and started down a brand new pathway.

www.queststables.com

[pony gal]

Awesome story of what can be achieved when you take that step forward.